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63 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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The political significance of the Magna Carta
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The Manga Carta redirected the powers of the king to tax the aristocrats. It represents the first check against the King’s power.
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The Meiji Restoration
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(Japan) the 1868 revolt that led to the downfall of the Tokugawa clan, the revival of the position of the emperor, and the implementation of crash course of modernization for Japan
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Japan Socialist Party
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Largest opposition party in post-war Japan from 1955 to its disastrous electoral performance in 1995 House of Representatives elections. Changed name to Social Democratic Party of Japan in 1991
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Japan’s Iron Triangle-
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Power interest groups- Bureaucracy, Elected Politicians, and Big Business.
Connected at many different areas: -Elite Universities -Inter marriage -Amakuderi-“descent from heaven” -Big business campaign contribution -Loans, subsidies, advice to leading companies |
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Issue of the Japan Defense Forces
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Established by US in an effort to combat Cold War elements. Limited by Article 9 of post-war Japanese constitution to national defense. But increasing role in non-combatant UN peacekeeping missions
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America’s primary contribution to Japanese economic development
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Drafted the constitution in 1946 to restructure the Japanese government after WWII
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Naoto Kan-
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Current prime minister of Japan
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Discuss the problem of Russia’s “oligarchs”
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Group of a dozen or so bankers and industrialists who took advantage of the rapid privatization of Soviet property to amass huge personal fortune. During the 1990s, this group controlled most of Russia’s most powerful media, banks, and raw-material companies. Putin launched a crackdown on those oligarchs who openly opposed his regime.
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Compare political development under Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin
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Putin asserted the “vertical of power”. He was the successor of Yeltsin. Was more loyal to Oligarchs. Attained high popularity for his restoration of economic and social stability, and his efforts to restore the power of the Russian state. Yeltsin was the first democratically elected president of Russia. Organized the movement to declare the Russian Federation an independent country and thus to destroy the USSR. Violently disbanded the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies and introduced the new Russian constitution.
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Discuss the role of Mikhail Gorbachev in the creation of modern Russia
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made extensive changes in domestic economic policy and even more so in foreign policy, which paved the almost immediate end to the cold war
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Tradition of Moscow as the Third Rome
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the obligation of Moscow to continue the civilizing mission of the fallen Second Rome, Constantinople (Byzantium). The partnership of church and state necessary to achieve the goals of the Orthodox faith. The legitimacy of the state anchored in its religiously sanctioned mission of betterment and progress towards spiritual salvation. The “Czar” (or Caesar) of Russia stood above all other rulers because of the ruler’s mission.
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Democratic centralism
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The central institutional principle of Leninest political organization. According to this principle, “democratic” debates among party members are allowed only until the party leadership makes a final decision, at which point all members are obliged to implement the orders of their superiors without question.
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Nomenklatura system
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a list of important jobs filled by party appointees. Eroded the distinction between party and state. The unification of the two meant that the party had expanded roles, which meant that there was a concentration of both executive and legislative/decision making power in the hands of the party and its leadership
Appointment to all positions in Soviet society required approval of the Communist Party bureaucracy. “Nomenklatura” was the name of the people |
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Attempted political coup of 1991
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Attempt by a group of members of the Soviet Union’s government to take control of the country from Soviet president Gorbachev. They were opposed to his reform program and the new union treaty. Yeltsin then stepped up to control government in replace of Gorbachev to save the Soviet Union but then Gorbachev comes back to offive only to realize his time is done.
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United Russia party
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largest political party in the Russian federation. Conservative party. Supports Putin. Supported the policies of Dimitry Medvedev. There is also evidence that the electorate credits the party for improvements in the economy.
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Dimitry Medvedev
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current President of Russian Federation, was PM to Putin, and continues to pursue economic modernization.
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Russia’s Council of the Federation (Federation Council)
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The upper house of the Federal Assembly. The Federation Council has since 2001 been made up of representatives appointed by the governors and regional legislatures of all of Russia’s federal regions and republics.
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Role of the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
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Top leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
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Role of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party
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The organ in the Chinese Communist Party where the real power resides. The CCP follows the Soviet model in its power structure. Ostensibly, he party Congress is the source of the ultimate power in the party. However, under the practice of Lenin’s “democratic centralism” the real power migrates to the Central Committee, which Congress elects, then to the Politburo, which the Central Committee elects. The Politburo is headed by the general secretary and is composed of the highest-ranking officials from the party and the government. These people are the most powerful leaders in the PRC.
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Hu Jintao
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Secretary general of the CCP since the Sixteenth Party Congress of November 2002 and president of the People’s Republic of China since the Tenth National People’s Congress of March 2003. Hu assumed the post of chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission of the party in September 2004. Hu was designated Jiang’s successor by Deng and promoted to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee at the Fourteenth Party Congress in 1992 as its youngest member. Core of the fourth-generation leadership and a quintessential technocrat.
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Long March
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The retreat of the communist forces of Mao Zedong from the nationalist army after the annihilation campaign of 1934. After communists had been purged from the KMT in 1925, the CCP organized riots and set up many “Soviet regions”. The KMT then launched five annihilation campaigns against them. In 1934, the largest Soviet region in Jiangxi was overrun by KMT troops, and the communists were forces to flee from their base with the nationalist army in pursuit across southwest China. After the Long March, Mao’s forces ultimately settled in Yan’an of Shan’xi Province.
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Dr. Sun Yat-sen
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Founding father of the Republic of China, who led a revolutionary movement to overthrow the Manchu (Quing) dynasty in 1912. When the ROC disintegrated into warring regions, Dr. Sun founded the Kuomintang (KMT), built a power base in the southern province of Guangdong, and began inviting Soviet advisers to his camp. Died in 1925 before China was unified under the KMT
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Kuomintang
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(KMT) or Chinese Nationalist Party, the ruling party in the Republic of China until May 2000. Founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, evolved from the Nationalist Party and the Chinese Revolutionary Party, when he saw no hope of practicing democracy in a china plagued by warlord politics. Eqipped with a centralized party organization, special departments targeting specific groups in the poputiotion and the National Revolutionary Army. The March 2000 presidential election defeat of the KMT’s candidate. Lien Chan, threw the party into disarray. Debacle was repeated in March 2004 when Lein lost again.
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Great Leap Forward
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Mao’s greatest economic adventure. During the First Five-Year Plan period (1953-57) the PRC adopted the Soviet model and built a centrally planned economy to boost economic growth. Toward the end of that period, serious bottlenecks developed and Mao was impatient. His solution was to mobilize human labor through ideological agitation and plunge the whole population into production campaigns. The goal was to surpass Europe and the United States in industrial production. The Great Leap Forward brought unprecedented famine and death of three million Chinese people.
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The Cultural Revolution
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Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the great political upheaval in the PRC that lasted for a decade (1966-76). Touched off by Mao’s effort to regain political influence after the disastrous Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution was ostensibly aimed at uprooting the traditional Chinese culture that was accused of undermining the communist revolution. The concrete targets were party cadres, state officials, and intellectuals whom Mao and the radicals found threatening to their power. During the revolution, the state was paralyzed, the educational system destroyed, and production seriously disrupted. The Cultural Revolution brought unimaginable damage to China, but, paradoxically, it also laid a solid groundwork for the post-Mao reforms, as the disrupted planned economy of China proved much more conducive to market reforms than the more rigid economic system in the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries.
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Jawaharlal Nehru
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Leading figure in the Indian National Congress and India’s first prime minister. He is identified with a “third way” of development that rejected alliances with the superpowers while combining aspects of Western-style capitalism and Soviet-style planning.
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Indira Gandhi
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Daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, and prime minister of India (1967-77, 1980-84). Identified with the rise of patronage politics, the green revolution, a populist antipoverty campaign, the “emergency”, and the assault on Sikh militants in the Punjab. Assassinated by Sikh bodyguards in 1984. No relation to Mohandas Gandhi.
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Dr. Manmohan Singh
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Prime minister of India following the Congress Party’s surprising electoral victory in May 2004. Formerly minister of finance in the 1991-1996 Congress government
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India’s caste system
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The generic term employed to mean a fivefold occupational and social hierarchy ranging, in descending order of “purity”, from Brahmins and warriors to merchants/traders, peasants, artisans, and “untouchables”. Should be distinguished from the term “jati”, which is used to identify groups of families belonging to a subcategory of a caste within a particular region or community.
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Congress Party
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The political party that grew out of the Indian National Congress (INC) and held power for most of the first five decades after independence. Later referred to as Congress-I (for Indira Gandhi), which split wit hthe less significant Congress-O (for “organization”) in 1967. Since the 1990s, Congress and its allies have been using the original pre-independence appellation (INC).
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The Kashmir issue
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This conflict is a current territorial dispute over the northwestern most region of South Asia. It is a dispute between India, Pakistan, China and the Kashmiri People. India believes that this territory is an integral part of India.
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Partition of India
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Hindu- Muslim tensions, however dividing along religious lines would not be beneficial. India was partitioned by the British: created East and West Pakistan. Independence: most of the Muslim states: Pakistan, the rest: India
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British East India Company
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A trading company controlled by the British. This led to a rise of education and an English speaking middle class in India as well as the construction of railroads and telecommunication. Basically, the British exercised military power and assumed administrative functions. Unofficial British administration. Licensed British to do business in India. British used their help as leverage to the states. They would offer political help in exchange for economic privileges.
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BJP
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Indian People’s Party. A political party that has its roots in past Hindu fundamentalist organizations and gradually become a major political force during the 1990s on the strength of its glorification of Hinduttva
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The “white revolution” of Muhammad Reza Shah
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The second Pahliva monarch, who ruled between 1941 and 1979. Widely believed Reza Shaw was brought to power in 1921 to protect British government majority share of Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
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Iran’s Council of Guardians (Guardian Council)
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12 members: 6 directly appointed by supreme leader, 6 picked from list, created by supreme leader.
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Shia Islam
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A branch of Islam that is dominant in Iran. It places great authority in its religious leaders and values sacrifice in the path of justice.
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Grand Ayatollah Khomeini
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Revolutionary leader, president, and currently supreme leader of Iran. Associated wit hthe anti-reform faction since 1997.
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Mohamed Khatami
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Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005. He spearheaded efforts to libertize the Islamic Republic,
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Iran-Iraq War
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An intence war between Iran and Iraq between 1980 and 1988 during which Iraq first occupied parts of Iran but hten was compelled to defend its own territory against Iranian offensives. The most bloody and costly war since WWII, it ended with Iran’s defeat.
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The SAVAK
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Iran’s intelligence agency between 1954 and 1979. It was responsible for contending with the opposition and was associated with the Pahlivi monarchy’s human-rights violations.
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Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
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The British company that owned the concessions to excavate, process,a nd export Iran’s oil until 1954.
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Muhammad Musaddiq
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Nationalist prime minister at the time of the 1953 coup. He nationalized Iran’s oil industry and led the drive for limiting foreign influence in Iran and for instituting democracy in the country.
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Moderates/Conservatives/Hardliners
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With the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hard-liner party came to power. This was a conservative populist party directed @ the urban poor and disadvantaged areas of the country. This platform promised to political change, cultural freedoms and civil society activism (also the improvement of women in society). It targeted the middle class while virtually ignoring the poor. Strong government was defined in terms of competence and the capability to get things done.
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Afrikaners
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People of mainly Dutch extraction who comprise a distinctive linguistic subculture within the white community.
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The Boer War
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civil war branching from natives against the white elite farmers who have control of much of the relative land and much higher upon the socioeconomic scale, the conflict bled into the middle class suburbs.
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Apartheid
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An oppressive system of racial segregation that denied political and economic equality to blacks.
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Homelands policy
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special areas were created for different races and these areas were designated as their homeland during apartheid. A way of making the natives foreigners in there own country.
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Nelson Mandela
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President of African National Congress and first national president of majority-ruled South Africa. Widely respected as the father of racial reconciliation in South Africa.
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F.W. de Klerk
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The last Afrikaner president, known for releasing Mandela and negotiating a handover of white power.
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South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
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(1995) was charged to investigate the human rights of apartheid.
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African National Congress (ANC)
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The political party that led the struggle for majority rule in South Africa
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Explain the divisions among white South Africans (i.e., those of European descent)
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The main split between white South Africans of European extraction is between those ancestors of the English and the Dutch (Afrikaners). English speak English and the Afrikaners speak Afrikaans, a variant of Dutch. The Afrikaners (or Boers) first settled SA at the Cape Colony (modern day Cape Town), whereas the British took it over later. The majority of Afrikaners are in the provinces of Western Cape, Transvaal, and The Free State, while the English are concentrated in Natal province. Afrikaners hold much ambivalence towards the English, as the Boer Wars were won by the English. Many Boers were put in concentration camps as a way of stopping the guerrilla warfare of the Boers during the wars. There has always been a race for land in SA between the Boers and the English.
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Porfirio Diaz
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ruled during a period known as the Porfiriato as a ruthless dictator. Brought great stability to Mexico from 1876 to 1911 and also economic growth. Extended executive powers far beyond legal bounds and established “pan o palo” style of rule which was patronage or coercion
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Revolution of 1810
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unsuccessful independence movement by two spanish priests, Hidalgo and Morelos. Rallied a small peasant army but the two were captured and executed.
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Constitution of 1917
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Constitution of the Mexican Revolution that promoted radical agrarian reform and workers rights. It would become the legal basis for Lazaro Cardenas to redistribute land and nationalize Mexico’s Oil Industry.
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Emiliano Zapata
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The leader of the revolutionary army during the Mexican Revolution. He demanded greater rights for indigenous rural workers in southern Mexico, including a substantial land reform that eventually became a centerpiece of the 1917 constitution.
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Lazaro Cardenas
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President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. He was responsible for institutionalizing the corporatist form of government and bringing labor, agricultural workers and industry under the control of the state.
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Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
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The dominant ruling party of Mexico since the 1920s.. Although it originated as a center-left party, it has drifted toward the center-right since the 1980s.
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National Action Party (PAN)
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A center-right party established in the mid-1900s as a challenge to PRI dominance. It won some critical local elections during the 1980s and 2990s that pushed Mexico toward greater political liberalization,
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NAFTA
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An international treaty that lowered trade barriers among Mexico, the US and Canada. The centerpiece of President Salinas’s neoliberal economic strategy, it was implemented on January 1st, 1994, the same day that the Zapatista National Liberation Army initiated in its guerrilla insurgency.
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Vincente Fox
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Victor of the 2000 presidential election from the PAN (national action party) and former businessman. The first candidate from an opposition party to win the presidency since the Mexican Revolution.
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What is meant by anti-colonialism in Mexican political culture?
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Respect for ones land in mexican culture, this idea of colonialism is a very sensitive one in mexico, mainly because of America. Starting with our take over of about half of their land in early settlement and we continue to harm them on their homeland, just not in a physical manner. we hurt their economy at high levels by buying out their land in crops, and by inducing a mutual free trade so that their agricultural prices cannot compete and we still get to use them as a main oil resource.
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